The Cowards Answer
by skyressshun
Summary: He didn't want his life to be like his dad's but his desperation made him blind to what he had become. Can he save himself before it's too late?


**Just an idea on what he would be like when he grew up**

An empty bottle dropped from a limp hand.

The owner of which was almost unconscious from the drink in his system. So much of that concoction had passed through his lips poisoning him from the inside out.

But that was why he drank; to kill what was in him. In his mind. All those memories of that vile place; memories that haunted his dreams, plagued his mind.

He had escaped many years back but still they held control over him. No matter how much he despised that fact it was true they would always hold some form of control over him. He would always be trapped by them.

Scars littered his body but they had faded, the ones in his mind were still fresh even after all those years. Each physical scar he held on his body told a story and those stories were replayed in his mind every time his eyes shut.

Every hit he had been dealt, every harsh word thrown his way, at the time he had pretended they had no effect that they had bounced off of him. But in reality every word chipped away at his mind and every punch weakened his defence making him vulnerable, scared.

He covered his fear with arrogance making it almost undetectable to most. Most like almost everyone, there were a few who saw past his façade who saw what was underneath. A scared child who had been beaten down till he was a shell of what he had previously been. Those people were the only others who understood all he had endured as they had been through the same.

They too had been beaten and broken just as he had. But they had been fixed, he hadn't.

He had been to therapists but they did nothing to help; asking how it felt to be treated as he was. That did nothing only dragged up memories he had managed to bury and those ones were the worst, they were the ones which had broken him.

Even though he was supposed to be free of them they had left a lasting mark destroying everything he had, every relationship he had. His marriage had broken down and he had nothing to show for it. Just a book of fading memories; and it was those memories he wanted to keep. The memories he had of his son.

He hadn't seen him for years, he was all grown up now; and he had missed everything.

Every parents evening.

Every school play.

Every birthday and Christmas.

Everything that mattered, he hadn't seen him since he was seven that was over five years ago. He was grown up and from the occasional card he received he knew he was a great young man. And he had missed it.

The only human contact he had was from his friends coming around to drag him from where he had passed out to the lone lumpy mattress laid on the floor. He didn't even have a bed he had sold it for drink, he had sold everything he had for drink. He only had a worn out arm chair and a box TV.

He had nothing else, no family possessions, nothing.

Over the years since he had escaped he had only talked to four people properly and even they were starting to fade out of his life. Fade into the background. As they moved on gained families of their own they faded from his world, isolating him all the more reminding him of everything he had lost every time he saw their faces he saw his son and their children.

They had succeeded where he had failed they had a family and ones they loved. He had been the best man at one of their weddings but he had been so drunk during the service that he didn't even know who was getting married. He had passed out in a pool of his own vomit after the rings had been placed on the faceless peoples fingers.

He didn't even know if it was the right wedding, he was far too drunk to know.

The sad truth was that he knew their children better than he knew his own, he was Uncle Bryan to them to his own son he was that guy. He wasn't even a father anymore.

He had no identity anymore. He wished he could have something back, he even wished he could go back to that hell hole where they beat him till he passed out from lack of blood and they kept hitting him in his unconscious state just for fun. Just so the pain he felt when he came too was worse that when he passed out.

He wanted to go back there on some level and not just because they held control over him but because he wanted his identity back. In there he was feared by the other children, he was feared, he had an identity not the best but it was better than being that drunk in the corner of the pub shoulders slumped as he mumbled incoherent words to himself about the hardships he had been dealt.

He was someone people used to look up to now what was he? He was a middle aged man with a beer belly and a white tank top on, beer staining the front of the shirt from where he had missed his mouth from the shaking his hands had done from the lack of alcohol in his blood.

His friends, on the rare times they had caught him awake, had told him he was an alcoholic but he refused to believe them, he couldn't be one. He had sworn to himself not to become like his father, not to become one of them.

But he had failed on that as well just like everything else, he failed.

He was an alcoholic and he wanted help but if he was going to get help then he needed his friends. He wasn't going to get help for his son, for his friends or even for his ex-wife. He was going to do if for himself he was going to become who he was before, the strong confident boy he once was, the boy he had lost a long time ago.

His shaky hand reached out for the glass half full of whiskey, he instinctively brought it to his lips to take a sip but his mind snapped into place as the first drop touched his cracked lips. Pulling the glass from his face he threw it to the wall the glass shattering into a million pieces. Small rays of light dancing off the shards as they fell to the ground in an almost musical way, the drink still in the glass fell in droplets bouncing light off of them.

The scene seemed to go in slow motion almost as though it was the ending to a sad chapter in his life and signalling a new beginning, one which only he could decide on how it would go.

As to whether it would be a success or another failure to add to the ever lengthening list.

**please read review.**


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